


Peripeteia

by aftershocks



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Thor: The Dark World, Pre-Civil War (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2014-12-08
Packaged: 2017-11-10 15:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 15,347
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aftershocks/pseuds/aftershocks
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After his time on the throne and a second escape from the deep prisons of Asgard, Loki finds himself in New York, a place he accepts for asylum and beginnings.  But the world is still crashing down around his ears--nightmares keep him from his sleep, a piece of him is missing, and there is more than one angry party out to find Loki Laufeyson.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Found

**Author's Note:**

> I'm in the middle of reformatting what I have posted, so please be patient with the inconsistent formatting for now!

The first day, he gets himself an apartment, a tiny flat in the neighborhood they call Hell’s Kitchen, the proximity of which to Stark Tower probably makes it more dangerous than it’s worth. But it is close to everything, to bars and shops and the things he will need to blend in, so he ignores the danger.

They almost don’t let him rent the place. He has no ID, no social security number, and no credit score to speak of. It is only when he slides a fat gold coin across the counter that the hesitation melts from their faces. Gold: they are weak for it, sick for it. They accept ten coins-- hardly enough to buy mead at home-- for three month’s rent.

Perhaps he will survive after all, in this world of greedy fools; he has forty more coins identical to the ones he has just given away. It will just be a matter of finding those who can be bribed.

  


Later, he lies stretched out across a tiny bed that he has purchased from the downstairs neighbor for another coin. The neighbor sleeps now on the floor, but if she is smart she will amend that situation in the morning.

He smirks. He knows, from what he has observed of these humans, that it is far more likely that she will spend the gold on heroin, bed be damned.

His armor lays discarded in a corner, as it has all afternoon. He is dressed only in his leggings and tunic, his long hair tied back into a low ponytail. It is a passable disguise. Or it will be until someone comes looking.

In the morning, he decides, he will go shopping. Food, supplies, clothes. Things he would not have had to think about even a month ago, when the magic still coursed through his veins, before--

The thoughts that have been nudging at him all day become overwhelming, slamming against his skull. Stifling a cry, he turns on his stomach and buries his face in the mattress, relishing the sharp cracks this elicits from his still-healing nose. The pain is familiar, sweet: distraction enough to lull him out of poison thoughts and into sleep. His last thought before the darkness enfolds him is that some god above may protect him from nightmares, if only this once.

Loki Laufeyson dreams of monsters.  


The morning comes and with it the beginning of his new life. Loki decides that the first stop on his whirlwind shopping trip will be a clothing store-- unfamiliar with the majority of human trends, he decides to follow the crowds.

He has seen enough of New York to know about the subway, and ten minutes sitting in the nearest station, which he is directed to by the downstairs neighbor from whom he acquired the mattress, tells him all he needs to know. There is a man in the corner of the station clutching his head and murmuring indistinctly; Loki determines that he is hung over (a condition that centuries of living with Thor has familiarized him with) and therefore vulnerable. His well-tailored suit jacket, worn over skinny jeans, gives Loki hope that he may not be entirely without currency or a card. Loki approaches him, knocks his head against the wall hard enough to knock him out, and swipes the MetroCard from the pocket of his jeans. The man’s reflexes are too impaired by alcohol for him to do anything about it. For good measure, Loki takes his wallet.

He attracts no stares on the subway, though he must look strange, clothed in tunic and leggings, his long hair ratted. A shower took most of the blood and dirt, but the tangles remain. He adds a hairbrush to the growing mental list of necessaries.

The train makes its way into downtown Manhattan, an area he last saw ravaged by the Chitauri army. A large number of people disembark at one stop; he follows them out of the car and up the stairs, blinking in the sunlight. He knows this street, and yet he does not. Today, the cabs stand upright. There is no fire, no blood, no chaos. It is a strange thing.

Judging by way the humans avoid each other’s gazes, he feels it would be imprudent to ask for directions. Unfamiliar with the city beyond its potential for messiness, Loki chooses a direction and starts walking. He will stop for shopping as it becomes convenient.

He is rewarded, within minutes, by a store with tasteful garments in the windows-- suits, dresses, apparel perhaps inappropriate on Asgard but well-designed by Midgardian standards. The sign above the door announces, in large and gaudy letters, that the store is called Bloomingdale’s. It will do.  


The first thing he notices is the strange behavior of the humans in the store. The women are either riffling through circular racks of dresses and pants and skirts and tops of all kinds, pushing some garments harshly out of the way and pausing to admire others, or they are piling selections into the arms of the men who stand nearby but out of the way. There are scuffles and arguments amongst the racks, which seem to reach back forever, as if someone has filled all of eternity with clothing and the women fighting over it. And at his right elbow there is a man dressed entirely in black, bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet. Apparently the beings of this realm lose what tiny bit of decorum they possess when shopping.

“Hello, sir. Can I help you with anything?”

It takes Loki a moment to process that the voice is in fact coming from the man in black, who he had taken for... he isn’t sure what, but certainly not for someone capable of offering any kind of assistance.

The man is leaning in very close, still bouncing. Loki considers throwing him against the wall and finding a different place to shop, but he knows that he is out of his depth and that any other store will not be better, so he reluctantly accepts the offer.

“I need apparel.”

The man gives him a sad little smile, almost condescending. “Girlfriend giving you a hard time about the leggings?”

Loki offers a scowl in return. “No.”

“Boyfriend, then?” Loki does not bother dignifying this with a response. The man, unprompted, seems to make up his mind about what that means. “I see. Don’t worry, handsome, by the time we’re done, they’ll be crawling all over you.”

And before Loki can protest, he is dragged through the endless sea of clothing, deposited in a dressing room, and instructed to “Stay.” Loki Laufeyson does not stay at anyone’s behest, a fact that he makes perfectly clear to the man when he returns two minutes later gripping an armful of jeans; this apparently does not register with him, as he shoves the jeans into Loki’s arms and moves off again, calling over his shoulder “You’ll stay if I tell you, or so help me God I will put you in Gucci.”

  


Two hours later, Loki emerges from Bloomingdale’s in a dark purple t-shirt and tight-fitting jeans that the man in the shop insists make his “ass look fabulous”. In his left hand, he clutches a large bag of t-shirts, socks, underwear he does not want, and several more pairs of jeans; in his right hand, the stolen wallet, marginally lighter from the removal of several hundred-dollar bills.

Loki does not enjoy shopping, but he can say one thing for it: it has given him a new appreciation for the stupidity of humans. No other race would willingly subject itself to such a thing as men's dress shoes. And this is the only footwear the god-awful man has allowed him. This, and one pair of boots, which he is not to wear anywhere but the club.

Naturally, Loki changes into the boots less than a minute after he leaves the store, perching in the doorway of a bakery.

He is about to get up and continue on his quest for goods when he stomach gives an indecent rumble. There is a heavenly smell coming from the bakery, cinnamon and sugar and cheese and bread all mixed up, and while he has gone longer without a meal only recently-- two weeks compared to the 16 hours since he swiped an apple and several candy bars from a street vendor (stealing is certainly preferable to dealing with humans)-- this somehow hits harder, as if the recent memory of food makes the hunger worse.

Loki ducks into the shop, begins a trip up to the counter to demand whatever it is that smells of cinnamon, and freezes halfway there.

On the other side of the bakery sits Tony Stark, sharing a plate of pastry with Steve Rogers. Before Loki can move, before he can process what is going on,

Stark glances up and sees him. They lock eyes.

And then Loki is out of the building and sprinting down the street, cinnamon rolls and hunger left behind with a man who wants him dead.


	2. Run

Loki does not return to his apartment, and does not risk the subway; no matter how dense they are, between the two of them, Stark and Rogers would find him. Instead, he ducks into the last place they would look, a mere five blocks from the bakery. 

Curled in a pew, Loki admires the vaulted ceiling and stained glass of the church. Christianity has always seemed a limited viewpoint to him, closed to the idea of a solid and gendered creator. Thor’s grandfather was no benevolent, smiling God. He planted the seed of the World Tree because he thought it would bring him riches, not because he wished to bring his world into harmony with the next. Still, the humans have an eye for architecture. Loki reflects that he would not mind being worshiped in a place such as this. 

The door at the back of the church swings open, creaking on its hinges. 

  


Loki startles up from his seat and reaches for the dagger that is not there. The woman who has entered coughs delicately. 

“The Lord does not accept crack heads in his home, young man.” Loki blinks at her. She takes several authoritative steps toward him, moving, despite her bent back and withered limbs, as though she owns not only this church but all of New York City, and pauses far enough away that she cannot smell him. Loki is shocked but still manages to be offended; he bathed last night. Nevertheless, he inches backward until his back is flush against the wood of the pew behind him. Something in her eyes says she will not tolerate having him any closer, and he has neither the weapons nor the magic to counter her if she decides she wants him dead. 

She clears her throat. “Did you hear me?” 

“I am not a crack head.” He means for this to boom, to fill the church and bring the woman to her knees. Instead it just sounds broken. 

“You look like one to me.”

  


The woman moves to the front of the church and kneels before the alter. She murmurs something to herself and then pulls a long string of beads out of her purse. One by one, she runs her fingers over them, as if counting them. Loki watches her for a minute and then, when he has decided that she won’t make any sudden moves, he edges out of the pew and moves toward her. When he is almost close enough to touch her, he speaks. 

“I am Loki, King of Asg—” 

“Shhhh!” Loki stops speaking. No one has hushed him before. Not even Odin. Fascinated, he squats down beside her and begins to finger the end of the strand of beads. 

  


The next thing Loki knows, he is sprawled out on the floor, his eyes tightly shut against the headache pounding behind them. 

  


Someone kicks his foot. “Wake up.” Loki opens his eyes a crack and groans; the light makes the headache worse. He rolls over so that all he has to look at is the stone floor. There is a shuffling sound of someone dragging their feet across the floor, and then— “I said wake! Up!” The old lady punctuates her demand with two more kicks, this time to the ribs. When Loki doesn’t move, she smacks him on the head.

Before she can pull her hand back, Loki reaches up and snatches it, rolling to face her with a snarl. She grins down at him. Loki is dumbfounded, and so unused to the feeling that he cannot keep it off his face. He lets go of the woman’s wrist, but she does not move her hand away. He stares at it. 

“Up.” Her fingers twitch expressively and Loki realizes he is meant to take the hand. He ignores it and leverages himself up to standing. He now looms over the woman, but she does not look afraid. Quite to the contrary, she reaches forward and pats him on the shoulder. “Bless,” she says, “my grandson does that when he’s in trouble, too. Ignores me.”

  


Loki decides he will try again.

“I am Loki, King of Asgard, rightful ruler of the peoples of—”

“I know who you are. How could I not? Tried to destroy the city a few years ago, yes?”

Loki begins to protest that it was not, in fact, his intention to destroy anything. She holds up a hand to silence him. Much to his surprise, Loki shuts his mouth.

“Caused quite a bit of trouble. Killed a few folks. Enough that I thought, why, if he wanted me dead, he’d have killed me when I walked in. Well, then you came and grabbed my rosary, and the only thing I could think of was to knock you out, and when my purse did the trick I figured you couldn’t be all that dangerous.” At this point, Loki is so confused that he has to sit down. “Anyway, I saw that nice young Tony Stark getting in a cab with Captain America not fifteen minutes before I got here. I thought if nothing else, I might scream enough that someone would think to alert them.”

Several thoughts occur to Loki in this moment.

  


First: Tony Stark takes cabs?

  


And then: was he, Loki, really that weak?

  


Finally: “Which way was he headed?”

The woman gives him a stern look. “I shouldn’t tell you.”

Loki stands. Loki looms. This time, it seems to have an effect, of sorts. The woman sighs. “They were headed for the tower. But really, if you intend to go find them, please do take me with you so that I can apologize in person. I wouldn’t want to inconvenience them by setting a killer…”

  


Loki does not hear the rest of this speech, because he is already climbing into a cab outside.

“Where to?”

Loki gives the driver the address of his apartment and instructions to make it quick, draws his knees up to his chest, and prays to the nine realms that Stark did not recognize him.


	3. Chase

"It was him!" Tony pounds his fist on the kitchen table for emphasis. No one looks up.

They’ve been at this table for two hours, going over and over Tony’s story, arguing about everything from how Loki could have come to earth to why the hell he would be wearing skinny jeans and a t-shirt, and they are all tired of hearing it. They are tired, period, and want to go home and back to their assignments, from which Tony has called them away. Each of them has thought independently that perhaps Tony is finally going mad. Clint has voiced this opinion. Tony is not giving up.  
“Stark,” says Thor, his voice softer and lower than usual, as though he is trying to tame a spooked horse, “Loki is secure in the best prison in the nine realms.”  
“That’s what you thought last time he got out, wasn’t it?”  
“He only escaped with my aid.”

Tony takes a deep breath. “Has it occurred to anyone else that someone other than Thor might want to break one of the most powerful magical entities in the universe out of prison? Anyone?” The room goes silent. “Right.” Tony says. “If I’m not back by midnight, somebody come looking.” He is halfway to the elevator when Clint speaks.  
“Can we leave? I have things to do.”  
Bruce, who has been sitting and watching for the past two hours and has not said a word, notices a red cast working up Tony’s neck. He wonders idly if Tony has a latent rage beast inside of him, and what it might look like.  
“Go,” says Tony, waving his hand in dismissal. And then he is across the kitchen and in the elevator.

Bruce looks around the table. No one meets his gaze. With a huff, he pushes himself up, crosses the room in five large strides, and sticks his arm in the elevator door before it can close all the way. He notices, when he steps into the elevator and turns around, that Steve has followed him. He shuffles sideways to make room.   
The three men don’t acknowledge each other as the elevator drops, so fast that Bruce doesn’t have time to rethink this before the doors open on the garage with a ping. Tony digs around in his pocket and tosses Bruce the keys to the corvette, which happens to be Bruce’s favorite car of the many that Tony owns. “Let’s go,” he says. And then comes the business of trying to fit three not-small people into the tiny sports car.  
When they finally wedge themselves in, Steve hunched over so that the low roof can accommodate his frame, Bruce decides to take one shot at bringing some sanity to the situation. “You realize he’ll see this coming a mile off, right?” Bruce says. He slots the key into the ignition as he speaks, not because he thinks this is advisable, but because he knows Tony well enough to anticipate his answer. “He knows you’re rich. And an asshole. This car was made specifically for rich assholes.”  
“I’m also pissed. Drive.” 

So Bruce drives, and Tony taps away on his smart phone, and Steve sits in the back, staring out the window, and by the time they’re through the worst of the traffic, Tony has a look in his eyes the prompts Bruce to lock all the doors. He keeps driving, staring straight ahead and hoping that if he does not acknowledge Tony, Tony will not say anything stupid. But of course he does anyway.  
“We could set a trap.”  
Both Steve and Bruce neglect to answer him.  
“I mean, we still have the Tesseract, right? Or SHIELD does, and I know they want to catch this little bastard just as much as I do.”  
“No,” says Steve. “We are not using the Tesseract.”  
“Look, Spangles, I know you’re still hung up on that whole anti-terrorist operation—”  
“With good reason!”  
“—but we need to get him.”  
“Not if he’s not here, Tony,” Steve says softly. “Bruce, pull over.”  
“Do not pull over, Dr. Banner.”

Bruce pulls over. Tony curses. Steve opens the door. “Don’t,” says Tony.   
“Tony…”  
“No, Rogers. Stay here.” Tony opens his own door and gives Bruce a little nod. “If you wreck my car, you’re paying for it.” He slams the car door and takes off down the sidewalk.   
Steve looks worried about this and in danger of going after Tony. “Leave him,” says Bruce, and restarts the engine. If Tony isn’t back by midnight, Bruce knows a guy. But until then, he’s going home.


	4. Cut

Loki pays the cab driver too much. He does not care, because if Tony Stark finds him, he is not long for this world; either Stark will kill him or his idiot brother will. Loki hopes it is Stark, because he might have the decency not to draw it out. If he manages to survive the next few days, Loki has thirty-nine more gold coins, and it has proven even simpler than he expected to divest humans of their money and possessions. On the way upstairs, Loki passes the woman who sold him a bed. She gives him a grin as she weaves down the hallway, all blackened teeth and retreating gums, and Loki wonders how much heroin the coin bought.

He is unlocking the door when a thought occurs to him. He turns back and takes the steps two at a time. The woman is still standing in the hallway. He pulls a gold coin out of the pocket of his jeans, struggling to extract it from the too-tight material, and holds it up so that it catches the light. The woman, who has been scratching herself and staring intently at the wall, snaps to attention.

“I need a knife.” He speaks slowly and clearly, so that he does not have to repeat himself. “You understand? The coin for a knife.” The woman stares for a moment and then scuttles off down the dark hallway. Loki hears a door open and slam shut. He is almost ready to sweep down the hall and take the knife by force when he hears the door creak open again. The woman comes back down the hall at a half-run, and Loki worries that she may fall and stab herself; a police investigation would create problems. But his concerns melt away when he sees the knife.  
The first coin must have purchased quite a lot of heroin indeed, for what the woman is holding is no ordinary kitchen knife. It is beautiful by any standard, perhaps not as strong or sharp as an Asgardian blade, but crafted with the same fine attention to detail. The handle is not gaudy, as Loki expects in the treasure of a human drug addict. Rather, it is carved from oak and mahogany, with delicate strands of silver dancing across the surface. The blade itself is clean, sharp, and well-cared-for.  
The woman presses it into his free hand and snatches the gold before shuffling back to her apartment. Loki holds it, feeling the weight and balance, and while he wishes more than anything for his dagger, he decides that this will do. He tucks it into his scabbard; it is not a perfect fit, but it is better than nothing. Loki takes the stairs back up, this time with less urgency.

When Loki arrives at his apartment, he sits on the bed, putting off what he must do. He reaches for the Bloomingdale’s bag, which he set near the foot of the bed when he came in, and upends it in front of him. He takes time to sort through the contents, fingering the fabrics and deciding which he might actually wear. Then, he flops back on the bed and stares up at the ceiling. An argument rages inside his head.  
He must do it to be safe. He must hide. He knows this. And yet… he remembers when Frigga used to braid his hair as she told him stories before bed. Odin always sat up with Thor, with his precious prince, regaling him with heroic tales, but in the end it was Loki who got the magic, and Loki who woke every morning with long braids for his brother to envy. Later, when they were too old for bedtime stories, Thor would sit with Loki as he shook and raged at the injustice of being left out by Thor’s friends yet again. Thor had always stepped in when he could, insisted that Loki come along on their grand adventures, but Thor could not always be there. On those days, he would find Loki wherever he had been banished by Sif and Fandral and the rest, and he would brush the tangles out of Loki’s hair and braid the sides back, and remind him that he, too, was a true prince of Asgard. But that was a lie.  
With a scream of rage, Loki sits up, pulls out the knife, and chops off the ponytail, all in one fluid movement. He picks it up from where it lies on the bed behind him and throws it at across the room. He feels his throat catch.  
Loki will not cry. He tells himself this even as the first tear falls and he has to bite his lip bloody to stop the rest. He does not love Thor, he never did, and Frigga… Loki does not wish to think about Frigga.  
He sprawls back on the bed and wishes for a book, but because he cannot magic one and did not think of it earlier, there is no warm fiction or tale of old to comfort him. Instead, he stares at the ceiling for several more hours until he gives into sleep and the horrors that wait there. 

Loki bolts up in the early hours of the morning, sweating profusely. He lashes out, still caught in the dream, overreaches the edge of the bed, and falls to the floor with a thump. Something cracks—Loki sits up and discovers that it’s his nose, which is now bleeding down the front of the purple t-shirt. He wipes at it with the back of his hand and stands up, then walks to the bathroom, where he strips naked, throws his clothing into the sink, and starts the shower. He doesn’t step in, however. Instead, he sits on the edge of the tub and watches the blood pool at his feet. When the blood has spread enough that he can see his reflection, Loki shakes himself, stands, and gets into the shower.

Ten minutes later he is clean but still bleeding. Loki wonders briefly whether he can die of blood loss, then dismisses the thought. If that was going to happen, it would have happened a week ago. Still naked, Loki leaves the bathroom, picks up his leggings from where he discarded them on the floor yesterday, and leans up against the window. He presses the leggings to his nose. The city is quiet this time of the morning, or at least as quiet as it gets. A siren wails somewhere, and the garbage cans in the alley below the window ring metallic as someone’s cat paws through them. Loki looks further out and sees the lights of the city glimmering. For stupid, simple creatures, he muses, humans have a remarkably well-developed sense of beauty. He stands there until the sun begins to rise. When the first light licks his skin, which has turned a dark blue over the course of the hours, Loki drops his blood-soaked leggings and heads for the bathroom, where he dresses in fresh clothing and washes the dried blood from his face. By concentrating very hard, he manages to change his skin back to its customary porcelain and bring his body temperature up a few degrees.

Loki returns to the window and looks out at the city once more, but this time, the sight is overlaid with visions of smoke and flames.


	5. Crash

Tony’s been to every neighborhood he knows, has signed autographs, and has bought a child-sized plastic Iron Man mask from a street vendor to wear around the house. He is not sure what he’s looking for, but he knows he hasn’t found it. There’s too much that’s shiny and gaudy and bright for Loki. Much as Tony hates to admit it, Loki is not stupid, and he wouldn’t hide anywhere Tony would think to look, which leaves only a few places.  
Tony hails a cab and checks his watch. It’s now 7am, and no one has come looking for him. Not that he really expected them to, but still, it would be nice. Some people have friends—and girlfriends—that care whether or not they’re alive. Not that it’s Pepper’s fault that she’s learned not to bother looking for him when he disappears, but… no, yeah, it’s definitely Pepper’s fault. Tony digs his phone out of his pocket. No new texts or voicemails. Not even Steve wonders where he is. This, Tony decides, is what depression might feel like, if he got depressed.

The driver says something. Tony looks up from his thoughts (he’s pretty sure he’s not drunk, but if he’s not, how’d he get in the cab without noticing?) and mutters something about Hell’s Kitchen. This, apparently, is a sufficient answer, because the cab starts moving.

Tony gets lost in a game of Plants vs. Zombies, and doesn’t look up again until someone taps on his window. They’re in some back alley covered in grime, and the driver is smoking a cigar—American, legal, boring—and there is no one outside, at least no one that he can see. Tony sighs as he remembers whose neighborhood he’s in.  
“How much?”  
The driver declines to answer, instead raising one unkempt eyebrow. Clearly, he knows who Tony is. Tony throws him a hundred and gets out of the cab, slamming the door behind him as hard as he can. “Prick,” he shouts. The driver gives him the finger and backs out of the alley. Tony pulls his jacket a little tighter.

As soon as the cab’s engine is out of hearing range, a shadow drops down into the alleyway in front of Tony.  
“Murdock,” greets Tony. Daredevil draws himself up and hands Tony a note, then leaps up to grab the fire escape above him and pulls himself up. “Wait, Matt, I need to ask—” but he’s already gone. Tony mutters some choice insults to himself. He’s never really seen eye-to-eye with Murdock on the whole theatricality thing. A hero’s not much good if all he ever does is skulk in the shadows. But then, Murdock’s always said the same thing about Tony’s preening. Anyway, it’s not as though Murdock would be paying any attention to Loki, even if he was here; Kingpin’s always up to something, and Murdock never seems to have time for anything else.  
Tony opens the note.

_Tony,_  
 _Figured you’d call if you needed me. Steve insisted on staying until you’re back, in case someone decides to take advantage of your absence, and someone needs to be around to make sure he doesn’t break anything. When you’re done chasing ghosts, come home. Steve’s eating all the palmiers. Also, something in the lab is beeping and I can’t figure out what._  
 _Bruce_

Tony can’t decide what annoys him most about the note. The casual tone? The disregard for his safety? The dismissal of this completely valid threat against mankind? No, Tony decides, it’s definitely the thing about the palmiers. Steve wouldn’t even know what a palmier tasted like without Tony, and, damnit, they’re his. Christ knows Steve wasn’t ponying up when it came time to pay yesterday. With very little time for reflection, Tony determines that the best course of action is one that involves annoying both of them, Steve and Bruce, as much as humanly possible. He’s going to walk home, and get drunk on the way.

Tony exits the alleyway and, on a whim, turns left. He’s glad he’s left his credit cards at home; this is most decidedly not a good neighborhood, gentrification or no. The sun highlights rats scurrying from garbage can to garbage can, sends fingers of light into the midst of back-alley drug deals, and washes over cheerfully painted upper-class homes that do not belong. Tony heads away from these homes, because in his experience, the rich are more likely to swindle him than the poor.  
Tony turns the corner and walks, scuffing his feet on the sidewalk and kicking stones, under the rotting awning of a worn-down apartment complex. There’s graffiti on the walls, including an image of a stylized spider, and almost all the ground-floor windows are cracked.

A man comes out of the door at Tony’s left, walking fast, and before Tony can say anything or jump out of the way, they’ve collided.  
“Hey, sorry man, are you—”  
Tony breaks off as the man lifts his head and spits a curse at him. It’s Loki.


	6. Interlude: Loki

Loki steps back from the window, aghast. He’d been in the bathroom no more than five minutes. It had been quiet, silent, and now…

He blinks and the flames fade from his vision. A delusion, then, guilt or fear or rage combined with a sleepless night and bad dreams. Loki takes a shaky breath and evaluates his mental state. He knows he should lie low for a few days, but right now, he needs fresh air.

It’s cold in the unheated apartment, and probably colder outside, and Loki’s had enough of being cold for one morning. He roots around in the Bloomingdale’s bag until he finds the jacket. It’s tight and black, with buttons that do nothing and a high collar that can be “popped,” according to the young man at the store. Loki likes it not for these qualities, but for the texture of the fabric, something called pleather, which was as close as he could find to anything familiar. He slides it on over his red shirt and yet another pair of skinny jeans (the only kind of pants he was allowed to buy) and, partly in defiance of the young man’s instructions and partly to conceal his identity, he pops the collar. For shoes, he pulls on the boots. Perhaps he will burn the dress shoes for warmth.  
He takes the steps slowly so that they will not creak and wake the neighbors.

Loki reaches the bottom of the stairs, the door to the complex twenty feet away, just past the superintendent’s apartment. As quietly as he can, he crosses the last few feet at a half sprint, pushes open the door—and runs smack into Tony Stark.


	7. Caught

Stark stares at him, wide eyed, mouth open in a stupid-looking half gape. Loki realizes that his mouth is open, too, and, to late, that he’s said something in his own accent.  
Loki pushes hard for a New York dialect and says, “Excuse me;” it comes out more corn-fed Iowan. He steps back and turns away, secure in the knowledge that his hair is gone, his clothes are new, and his voice is… different. Before he can get away, however, Stark reaches out and grabs Loki’s forearm.  
“Hang on,” says Stark in a flat voice. “Are you okay?”  
Loki stares resolutely ahead. “Fine.” He yanks his arm out of Stark’s grasp and heads down the street, walking fast. He is aware of Stark following him, but he is not concerned. If he can find an alleyway to duck into, Stark will search a lifetime without finding him. 

Tony hangs ten feet back, biding his time. He might have shorter hair and a different accent when it occurs to him, but Loki is still Loki. Tony would recognize the cold eyes and the overly-straight posture anywhere. Tony knew Loki as soon as he lifted his head, and, being a self-styled charismatic man of action, he acted. The silver bracelet on his wrist flashes blue. It’s getting close.

Loki can see an alleyway, maybe fifty feet ahead. He speeds up slightly—he does not risk a run, on the off chance that Stark is merely jumpy from their earlier encounter and not truly suspicious—and is so concentrated on reaching his destination that he overlooks the clanking noise that echoes through the street, dismissing it as another cat in some garbage cans. He’s close, twenty feet, ten…  
Something hits him between the shoulder blades, sending him flying forward and then down to his knees. Loki is back on his feet in an instant, but he finds his path blocked by something red and gold and all too familiar. Stark is wearing his armor.

Tony grabs Loki by the throat and presses him to the wall of an adjacent building, twenty feet above the sidewalk. He braces himself for some violent retaliation, but there is none. Spooked, he scans the street below for the real Loki. He gives up quickly. Either he’s gotten away, or this is no projection.  
Loki makes a choking noise. Tony is disinclined to show him mercy, but he’s also mouthing something, and Tony is by nature a curious man. He releases the pressure on Loki’s throat, holding him up instead by his t-shirt. Loki gasps, his eyes watering, and croaks out, “how?”  
Tony is confused until he realizes that Loki is glaring not at Tony’s face, but at the armor. Beneath his mask, Tony smirks. “Remote homing system. It comes when I call.” He takes Loki by the throat again. “Any other questions?” Loki looks at him reproachfully, again unable to speak. Tony figures if anyone deserves mockery, it’s Loki.

They both hear a thud at the same time and whip their heads towards the sound in tandem. The thuds keep coming, now trailed by car alarms. They’re getting louder. Something big is coming. Loki and Tony are frozen, each concerned for himself more than the other, each considering his escape route. And then The Hulk comes crashing around the corner, and for Tony at least, the panic subsides.  
Captain America is mounted rather comically on the Hulk’s shoulders, fingers tangled in the beast’s dark hair. This detracts slightly from his grandiose bearing.  
“Tony,” says Captain America, “Put him down.”  
“It’s Loki!”  
Captain America gives the man against the wall a long, hard look. If nothing else, there’s an uncanny resemblance.  
The man has stopped breathing.  
“Tony.”  
The man’s eyes flicker closed.  
“Tony, please,” says Steve, and this time it is Steve, soothing and concerned. “Don’t let him turn you into a killer.”  
Tony is torn. He could crush Loki’s windpipe and end this whole thing right now. But Steve, annoyingly, is right.  
Tony tosses Loki down to the Hulk, who catches him a little less gently than he might. Steve nods, once. Tony lands in front of them.

“How’d you find me?”  
“The armor flew through the kitchen window,” says Steve, and Tony curses because clearly he still needs to work some kinks, such as destroying personal property, out of this model, “and we knew you were somewhere down here—”  
“How?”  
“Murdock. Bruce likes him.” Steve shrugs; he shares Tony’s viewpoint on Daredevil, though for different reasons. “Anyway, Bruce hulked out and grabbed me. He followed the armor for a little bit, and then…”  
He looks down at the Hulk uncertainly. The Hulk grins. “Hulk smell you.”  
Tony sets his jaw. “Thanks. But I had it handled.” Steve looks ready to argue this point, but they’re all distracted by the voice that issues from the Hulks cradled arms.

“Let go of me, you insufferable beast.” He’s not hiding his accent anymore. The lingering traces of doubt flee Steve’s mind; there is no question that this is Loki. Before he can process this realization or come up with a plan of action, the Hulk does what he does best.  
“Hulk smash,” he rumbles, scowling down at the god he’s just embedded in the pavement.  
Tony stares for a moment and then turns on Steve. “Doesn’t he get a lecture?”  
Steve ignores Tony. The Hulk picks Loki up, holding him like a soda can, and flips Tony the bird with his free hand. Tony takes a deep breath and makes a mental note to spike Bruce’s coffee with methylene blue.  
“Now what?” Asks Tony.  
“Now we take him back to the tower,” says Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello my lovely readers. As a side note, don't do the methylene blue thing. Methylene blue can cause gastrointestinal problems, internal irritation, and confusion. A much safer and funnier way to turn someone's urine blue is Viagra. The more you know.


	8. Reunion

“I will take him home with me.”  
“No, you won’t.”  
“It is not for you to decide his fate! It was agreed, when he attacked Midgard, that his punishment would be in the hands of the All-Father.”  
“And look how well that worked out!”  
“I say we wake him up and kill him. Painfully.”  
“Tasha—”  
“Shut up, all of you. He’s moving.”

Loki almost wishes they would kill him. At least the pain would stop. By his estimation, he has two broken ribs, a concussion, a fractured wrist. At least he's come through the beating with his nervous system intact; though he cannot feel it over all the pain, his captors see his finger twitching when he wills it to. The room is silent. They must be watching. Loki stills himself in the hope that they might leave him alone.

“Loki.” Thor’s voice is soft. Loki would roll his eyes if the idea of opening them was not so unbearable. Even after all that has happened, Thor still wants Loki to be his fragile, obedient little brother. Thor is a fool.  
Barton’s voice is not as kind. “Get up, asshole.” Loki takes a chance and opens his eyes to glare at him, and is surprised that it does not hurt more. Of course, the horrible stabbing sensation that accompanies each breath he takes is a bit distracting. Barton raises a single eyebrow at Loki, as if daring him to do something about it. Instead, Loki takes in his surroundings. He is in the kitchen. There are apples on the counter several feet in front of him, and a dining table some distance to his right. To his left and slightly behind him is an elevator. The Avengers are grouped around him, some in costume and some in jeans. Stark has removed his armor, but Captain America is still clutching his shield. Loki cannot see Thor, but he knows he is there. Somewhere behind Loki, someone sighs in seeming relief. _Ah,_ thinks Loki. _There he is._ Loki decides he will punch Thor just as soon as he can stand up. For now, he is content to lie on the floor and try not to move very much.

The decision is taken out of his hands. Thor hefts Loki up by his armpits and sets him on his feet. Loki loses his breath and sways as his ankle gives out. Thor drags him a bit closer, and steadies him with one arm. Loki is humiliated.  
“You see, Barton,” Thor booms and slaps Loki on the chest, a sign of affection that sends more pain spiraling through his ribcage, “he could not hurt us if he wanted to. He is no threat. Let me take him home.”  
Loki very much doubts the veracity of this statement. It’s just that, right now, he has higher priorities than decapitating all of them. Such as breathing, and staying conscious.  
“Let go of me,” he growls.  
“Hush, Loki,” says Thor. 

Loki has reached his snapping point. He takes hold of the arm that Thor is using to support him and pulls hard. This does not send Thor into a flip as it has in times when Loki was stronger, but it does unbalance him enough for Loki to spin away and make a break for the elevator. The Avengers let him go. It doesn’t take long for him to find out why.

A foot from the elevator, a bolt of electricity shoots down Loki’s spine. He falls, whimpering slightly in the back of his throat.  
“Shock collar,” says Stark. “Works on dogs and mongrel pups. Now can we lock him up?”  
Loki wonders who is deciding his fate. Perhaps the female will have mercy and end it here and now.  
Thor speaks. “Yes. You may lock him up.”  
Loki hopes that his cell will be sound proof so that he does not have to hear Thor's lecture, or, god forbid, an appeal to the goodness inside.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had serious trouble with the last sentence of this chapter... however, I think I'm done changing it now. I wanted something playful that was a jab at Thor, but it kept coming across to intimate. I don't want to set this up to be weird when they get around to a big blow out fight, which seems inevitable...  
> As always, constructive feedback is appreciated! It's the only way I can improve!


	9. Lipstick

Loki sits on his heels, forcing the corners of his mouth up into a twitching half-smile, because he cannot muster a projection to do this for him. Five inches away, mirroring him on the other side of the reinforced glass is the female. She has been there for three hours, silent, watching. Loki will not speak to her because, while he does not believe she could trick him as she did the last time they met, she does inspire wariness with her steady gaze. Hence the smile. Loki is concerned about what might happen should she catch a glimpse of the deep and abiding fears haunt him and the weakness they cause. 

She reaches into the pocket of her jeans and takes out a tube of red lipstick. Loki watches as she applies it, wondering if she is trying to seduce him. He snorts at the thought. She puts the lipstick away.  
“It’s not for you.”  
Loki tilts his head, part acknowledgement and part curiosity. She raises an eyebrow.  
“You really think I’m going to tell you anything else about it?”  
“Have you told anyone?” He intends to embarrass her. He wants to see her go scarlet. Instead, she remains impassive. Loki wonders if it’s just her eyes that are dead, or if her heart is, too. His next jab is below-the-belt. “It’s Barton, isn’t it? He cried for you in his sleep.” Loki’s grin is real now.  
“Funny,” she says, “now, in his sleep, he talks about killing you.”  
They lapse into another long silence. When Loki stands to stretch his legs, so does she. When he squats back down, she follows. Finally, Loki picks himself up and goes to sit against the wall kitty-corner to the woman. “May I have a book?”  
She chuckles. It is not a happy sound. Loki takes this as a no. He tries another approach. “If you send me back to Asgard, I won’t be your problem anymore.” Not that this will help him, but, much like the book would have been, it will be a change of pace. A new locale in which to experience his ultimate demise. One with reading material and food. His stomach chooses that moment to remind him loudly that it’s been over a day since his last meal. He glares at her.  
“I’m not in charge of your feeding and care,” she says.  
“Then what good are you?”  
“Stark wanted someone to watch you, and you’re afraid of me.”  
“Yes, you and kittens. How could I forget?”  
“I could kill you right now without so much as breaking the glass.”  
“You could try.”  
They have both come to their feet, and she looks ready to take him up on his challenge.

Fortunately for the female, or for him, though Loki tries to ignore this thought, they are interrupted. Less fortunately, they are interrupted by Thor. Thor pauses for a moment to take in the scene.  
“Natasha,” he says, finally, “will you excuse us? I must talk with my brother alone.”  
“I don’t know if that’s a good idea, Thor.”  
“Natasha. We have been over this. He cannot harm me.”  
Loki wants to bang on the glass and scream that he _can_ harm Thor. He can rip off his head or break his neck or reduce him to a sobbing pile on the ground. But he does not move, because he is afraid that if he speaks to Thor, he might cry.

Natasha hesitates for another beat before she walks down the long hallway, lined with cells identical to Loki’s, and she lets herself out the door with a retinal scan. Thor waits until she is gone to speak.  
“They will kill you this time, Loki.”  
The threatening tears pass. Loki is angry. “Me? No, I am not the one who deserves punishment. You are the one who left Balder in charge! He was not even in line for the throne, Thor, and you took it away from me to give to that idiot!”  
“You forfeited your right to the throne when you harmed the people of Midgard!”  
“And you forfeited yours when you betrayed Odin’s trust.”  
A crash of thunder shakes the building. “I was not the one who killed him!”  
“No. You are the one who begged them to let me live.”  
Thor would kill him, were they on the same side of the glass. Loki can see it in his eyes. He relishes this more present and minor threat to his life. It is refreshing to be faced with a death he can fight.  
“I can see now that I should have let you die,” says Thor. Loki scoffs.  
“Yes, you made your regard for my life very clear when you left my body in Svartalfheim. Tell me Thor, did you intend to honor me at all? I took that blade for you. Or was that what you did when you spared me? I almost mistook it for affection.”  
“Do not pretend you took that blade for me, Loki. You did it for the same reason you do anything: to advance your own interests.”  
“So cynical, brother?”  
“No, Loki. I can finally see the truth.”  
Loki yawns. “Are we done? Can I get back to staring at the wall?”  
“No.”  
“So you didn’t come to lecture me?”

Thor looks torn. Loki does so hate to deprive him of any chance to carry on about Loki’s misdeeds and potential for good. On the other hand, he has better things to do. The wall behind him really is quite fascinating.  
“No,” says Thor. Loki is surprised Thor has dropped the lecture this quickly. Perhaps Jane Foster is at stake. “I need to know how you lost your magic.”  
Loki takes a step back. This is unexpected. “I haven’t,” he lies.  
“Stark said—”  
“What would Stark know about it?”  
“You did not fight back. There were no projections.”  
“Perhaps I did not think I needed them.” Loki is pacing now; he feels confined. He needs to get out. “If the beast had not shown up with Captain America—”  
“You would be dead,” finishes Thor. 

Loki stops pacing and he looks at Thor and he can feel the fear creeping onto his face. He swallows hard and wrestles his expression into something less pitiful. “Tell me, brother, what is it you presume can take away my magic? What could possibly be so powerful?”  
Thor looks sick and concerned all at once. “That is what we are trying to find out.”  
Loki knows two things that Thor doesn’t. First, it does not matter if Thor finds out, if any of them find out, because they are all going to die no matter what. And secondly, Loki is beyond redemption. No matter what he says to Thor in this moment, no matter how glorious his eventual death, he will be immortalized as the vengeful, villainous bastard. Loki sees no reason not to live up to this title.

He gives Thor a poisonous grin. “Best of luck in your endeavor, big brother.” Then he spins around, sits down, and fixes his gaze on the wall.


	10. Flashpoint

At 8pm, Loki curls up in the corner of his cell to sleep. They have not provided him with a bed. 

Upstairs, the Avengers sit around the kitchen table. Clint and Natasha have their heads together; the only indication that they might be discussing anything more serious than whether Clint looks better in purple or black is his fist, which is slowly clenching and unclenching at his side. Bruce is reading the paper. He is avoiding Tony’s gaze, because he does not want to be anyone’s therapist tonight. Tony, meanwhile, has fixed his eyes on Bruce only because he cannot look at Steve. Since the pastry thing, there’s been a series of jokes, and, horribly, a voicemail from Pepper saying that they need to talk. Tony is stupid, but not stupid enough to enflame the situation. Steve is doing a crossword. All of them are studiously refusing to acknowledge Thor, who is eating pop tarts like there is no tomorrow. They do this under the guise of giving him privacy, but actually, they are terrified. 

Clint and Natasha are the first to leave the table. It passes without comment that they both head down hallway off the kitchen, although there’s only one bedroom on this floor apart from Bruce’s; it’s been a trying day, and no one wants to be shot.  
A short time later, Bruce folds his paper up, tucks his reading glasses into his shirt pocket, and gives Tony a curt nod. When he leaves the room, Tony is forced to shift his gaze to Thor, who has moved on to a week-old pizza. Tony gets up, retrieves two shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey from the cabinet, and initiates a silent drinking contest with Thor. The object is to stay conscious. Steve makes a disapproving noise in the back of his throat. It is 11pm.

Loki is sleeping soundly, his knees tucked into his chest.

Thor and Tony are drawing pictures on the table in whipped cream when the elevator doors shut behind Steve. He picks a floor at random. The elevator opens onto a long hallway. Steve wanders down it a ways, takes a left, and finds himself in a glass-paneled conference room he’s never seen before. He leans his head against a window and watches the traffic pass by below. A picture of Bucky, not of Bucky that was but of the Winter Soldier, flashes into his mind, and he begins to cry.

They polish off all the bottles in the kitchen and they’re both still going strong, so Tony digs through the drawers until he finds Bruce’s Wintergreen Lifesavers and shows Thor how chewing them in the dark produces little sparks. With the lights off, they plow through most of the bag. The alcohol and sugar get to Thor at 1am and he passes out. Tony attempts to lift him, fails, and decides that he’s probably slept worse places than the kitchen table.  
Tony is very drunk. He sits back down and cradles his head in his hands. The elevator rumbles; Tony does a quick mental inventory of who’s in the tower and arrives at the conclusion that Steve is finally going to bed. “Maybe he wouldn’t hide if his mascara was waterproof,” says Tony to the empty room. Luckily, he’s never needed anyone to laugh for him when he’s drunk; he’s giggling on the floor when he hears the other sound.  
Someone is screaming. The sound is muffled by layers and layers of steel and concrete, but it’s unmistakable. Tony sits upright, alert, but the sound has stopped. Thor looks comfortable where he is, and sleep seems like a good idea, so Tony pulls himself back up into his seat.

Downstairs, Loki is begging for his life.  
“I never meant to leave! I just—I came to get it back—please…” His eyes roll back in his head so only the whites are showing. He is on his knees. “I don’t want to die.”  
Loki screams again. 

Stark jolts awake. He didn’t imagine this one. Thor is still drooling on the table, so it’s not him. Tony pulls himself up with no small effort, and stumbles down the hall. He pokes his head into first one bedroom and then the other on the off chance that one of his teammates is screaming very quietly into their pillow. Bruce, Clint, and Natasha are all deeply asleep, however—the former face-up, and latter two in a tangle of limbs in the midst of a nest-like structure of blankets with nary a pillow to be seen. Tony backtracks to the kitchen and gets a bag of Doritos to help him consider his next move. 

Loki convulses and collapses on the floor. The cell is dead silent.

Tony nibbles contemplatively on the corner of a chip. Steve talks in his sleep, and sometimes yells, but Tony knows his voice and this isn’t it. Anyway, Steve always yells words, not just tortured syllables. Taking careful aim, Tony throws a Dorito at Thor. The chip hits him in the eye. He doesn’t even grunt; Tony doubts that he is screaming with no provocation. Which leaves one option.  
Tony sets the bag of chips on the counter, and ambles towards the elevator. Halfway there, he turns back and grabs the chips. Just in case.

The elevator ride is too short for Tony’s tastes, because he really doesn’t want to deal with this. He tells himself that he doesn’t _have_ to deal with it; he will just stand and watch. There’s nothing wrong with the bad guy having a nightmare.  
But when Tony’s off the elevator and down the long hallway and in front of the cell, it becomes evident that Loki hasn’t just had a nightmare. He is lying face down on the floor of his cell, twitching. The breath that should be lifting his back and pushing his ribs out is absent. Tony wants to leave, but Thor will kill Tony if he finds out that Loki has died in Tony’s basement. Tony bangs on the glass.  
“Hey! Wake up!”  
Loki does not move. Tony’s concerns over his wellbeing become grave.  
“Loki, you bastard, wake up!”  
Loki stirs and Tony can breathe again. 

Loki lies on the floor until the world stops spinning and then sits up. His pupils are blown wide; Tony can see the fear on his face from the other side of the glass and immediately goes on the defensive. Anything that can scare Loki can probably shatter the rest of them like so many whiskey bottles. Loki takes a few deep, shuddering breaths and says, “Calm down, Stark. It was just a dream.”  
But Loki looks far from calm and this makes it very hard to do as he says. “You were screaming,” says Tony.  
“Surely you have had a nightmare, Stark? I should think nearly dying in another dimension might inspire a bad dream or two.”  
Loki’s back to his old sniping self, but he’s still trembling. If there’s something down here with them, Tony’s dead anyway— the alcohol’s numbed his senses and reflexes too much for him to do anything constructive—so Tony shifts all of his focus to Loki. 

This is an interesting development.

“What were you dreaming about?” he asks.  
“I sincerely hope you’re not trying to pick me up, Stark. What will it be next, questions about my star sign? Sorry, I don’t date Tauruses.”  
“I’m a scientist. I ask questions.”  
“You’re a moron. At least Thor has a pretense when he inquires about my business.”  
“Fine. Maybe I just enjoy hearing about your misery.”  
Loki sighs, and puts his forehead down on his knees, which he’s drawn up to his chest. “I really am not in the mood for your gloating just now.”  
“So talk.” Tony sits cross-legged on the floor in front of the cell.  
Loki looks sideways as him. Stark’s hair is mussed, and he is swaying a little where he sits. He has a bag of chips with him. Loki wonders just how drunk he is.  
“I will talk,” says Loki, “if you promise to let me go.”  
“I’m not that drunk.”  
“Is Thor?”  
“I’m not getting him, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”  
Loki puts his head back down. Tony remembers the Doritos. His crunching punctuates the silence.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?”  
Tony speaks around a mouthful of chips. “No.”  
“And I suppose you’re not tired?”  
“I stopped noticing years ago.”

Tony has almost finished off the bag of chips when Loki moves again, stretching his legs out in front of him. “Why did you wake me?” he asks.  
“So that Thor wouldn’t kill me.”  
“Thor wants me dead.”  
“Not according to the five bottles of liquor he finished off tonight.”  
“Thor drinks no matter his mood. You are not afraid of him.”  
“Yes, actually, I am. It’s the lightening that really gets to me. That and the biceps the size of watermelons.”  
“Curious.”  
“Sensible.” Tony pushes Thor all the time, but not far enough to earn himself a broken neck.  
“No, curious that you have no other motives.”  
Tony does not know what he means, but he decides to play along. If Loki’s feeling talkative, he might as well milk it for all it’s worth. “Not that I’m sharing.”  
“Now look who’s not disclosing.”  
Tony grins. He can play this game. “You tell me one thing about your dream, and I’ll tell you one reason I didn’t let you die.”

Loki considers. He does not care about Stark’s motives, but he does care why Stark is not on the same page as Thor. He’s too drunk to be duplicitous, which must mean that either the Avengers aren’t letting Stark in on their plan, or Thor is planning to abandon them all to defend Asgard from the threat he is searching for in Loki’s recent past. That _would_ be an interesting plot twist.  
“They involve a monster,” says Loki; for now, he will play it close to the chest.  
 _Shit,_ thinks Tony. He didn’t anticipate an answer, at least not that fast. He searches his drink-addled brain for a reason, any reason, and finds something that’s been nagging at him since he cornered Loki.  
“I want to know how you lost your magic.”  
Loki goes pale.  
Holy shit.  
“You actually lost it?” Tony assumed, in hindsight, that the lack of projections was some kind of ploy. He’s been expecting a breakout or attack for hours. “Your magic? It’s gone?”  
“Must you phrase everything as a question?” Loki sounds tired. “You can stop pretending, Stark. I know you spoke to Thor about this. He already asked.”  
“Asked what?”

Loki rises, and goes to glare out of the other side of his cell into the dark hallway that runs behind it. Pushed against the wall of the hallway are a stack of cots and several cases of something called Goldfish Crackers. Both are conspicuously absent from Loki’s cell.  
“Loki,” repeats Tony, “asked what?”  
“Go away, Stark.”  
“Not until you tell me. Seriously, what did Thor ask you?”  
Loki spots a pillow crammed between two cots and something inside him snaps. He whirls on Stark. “The same question you did. The same thing you are all trying to pry out of me. You assume, falsely, that I care about any of your pitiful lives, or about this world. That, if you beg long enough, if you manipulate me, I may give you a hint as to the horrors of this universe and the next.” The full reality of the situation hits him, and his voice breaks. “I would have saved you! Do you understand? I would have saved the nine realms, but you and your precious Avengers—”  
Tony is on his feet. Safety glass or no, he’s terrified of Loki in this moment. As frightened as he is, however, there is something pressing on his mind much harder. “Loki!”  
“I am not done, Stark! If you had simply allowed me to rule this realm, as I intended—”  
“Loki, SHUT UP!”  
Loki lunges at Stark. He does not flinch. His eyes are blank and his mouth is set. Loki pauses in his tirade for a moment, puzzled.

“You done?” Asks Stark. Loki remains silent, but relaxes his stance. “I didn’t know.”  
“Do not think you can fool me, Stark. I know that you and Thor—”  
“Thor didn’t say anything to me, Loki. I told the team what happened in Hell’s Kitchen at least ten more times after we dragged you down here. We were trying to figure out what the hell you’re doing in the city. The last time I told it, Thor asked all these questions—how you looked, how much you struggled—and then I went to get cleaned up while they kept talking. When I got back, Thor was gone.”  
“Surely Rogers told you, or Banner.”  
Tony feels sick. “No.”

Loki does not think these men would betray Stark. But there’s a green cast to the man’s skin, and he’s wobbling from more than just the alcohol. He’s vulnerable. Loki can work with this.

Loki raises an eyebrow. “Fascinating.”  
Tony sinks back to the floor. “What am I going to do?”  
Loki squats so that he is on Stark’s level. “To begin with, you will not tell your team that I have lost my magic.”  
Tony drags his gaze up from his shoes, looks Loki in the eyes, and nods.


	11. Morning

Steve sets a glass of water and an Alka-Seltzer tablet on Tony’s bedside table and pulls the blanket back up; Tony kicked it off in the night. Tony is not breathing visibly. With professional detachment, Steve pries open Tony’s mouth and runs his finger around the inside to ensure that Tony has not choked on his own vomit.  
Tony chokes on Steve's finger.  
He bolts upright and presses himself against the headboard. His eyes dart around the room and finally come to rest on Steve, who has remained impassive.  
“What the fuck?”  
“You’re welcome,” says Steve.  
“I didn’t thank you.”  
“I assumed you forgot.”  
Tony flings off the covers and stands, intending to make a grand exit. Instead, he takes one step, sways on the spot, and collapses backwards. Steve catches him and guides him back to the bed. Tony stares at the floor until the worst of the nausea has passed. Alert to any further vertigo, Tony inches his hand towards the water and Alka-Seltzer, and, once he has it, downs it in two gulps.   
Steve digs in the pocket of his jeans and hands Tony two Tylenol. Tony swallows them dry.  
“We found you in the kitchen,” Steve says. “Well, Thor found you in the kitchen, around 4am. You weren’t out yet, so he stayed with you until you were and then brought you in here—surprisingly, he knew well enough to put you on your side. He wanted to make you pancakes but Bruce and I convinced him that this would be better.”  
“A Bloody Mary would be better.”  
Steve gives him _that_ look, the one that makes terrorists quake in their boots but usually only makes Tony roll his eyes. “I don’t think your relapse needs any help.”  
Tony is torn between punching him and hugging him. Well, not hugging, but possibly patting him on the back, or shaking his hand; some completely neutral gesture of thanks for the Tylenol. Steve chooses a third option when he stands up. “We’ll have dry toast waiting,” he says before he leaves the room. 

Loki sits meditating. For the past 900 years, he has forgone mantras, seeing them as a crutch for feeble mortal minds. Today, however, deep breathing is not enough. His mind is fixated on the past, both very recent and barely distant, so he has resorted to reciting an old Norse lullaby to himself, running over and over this prayer for a child’s safety and heroism.   
Despite his efforts, Loki’s mind is continually pulled out of the present. Images of Tony and the remnants of last night’s fear and desperation crowd at the corners of his mind, mingling with a prayer that Stark has forgotten everything. Loki knew the plan to get Stark on his side was a bad one before he even tried it; the way Stark blubbered in the night, ignoring Loki’s prodding and cajoling in favor of questioning his luck, confirmed it. He left, finally, muttering something about more whiskey, and that was when Loki took to pacing. His mind raced with regret and half-formed plans, and when that did nothing more than aggravate the headache building behind his eyes, he sat to meditate.  
The headache is gone but the problem is not. Stark is a gullible idiot when he’s drunk, but Loki has learned the fleeting nature of drunken paranoia through many nights spent calming a panicking Thor and subsequent mornings spent avoiding his rediscovered boisterous joy. No matter what Stark believed last night, Loki knows that he woke up this morning trusting Banner and Rogers more than his own mother. This in itself would not be a problem, but it seems that the Avengers have an annoying habit of keeping each other in the loop. The Avengers other than Thor, anyway. If Stark’s paranoia has drained out of his blood with the alcohol and he’s somehow managed to retain details of last night, Loki needs to rethink everything if he wants to stay alive. Advertising his condition was definitely not part of the plan. 

Tony stumbles into the kitchen in search of a beer. It’s less a hair-of-the-dog thing than a conviction that any relapses should happen in the grandest manner possible.   
“We all know you’re a douche, Stark, you don’t need to wear sunglasses inside to prove it.”  
Tony, sure he was alone, feels his heart flutter, but goes for nonchalance as he turns to face Natasha. The effect is ruined when the ensuing head rush forces him to lean heavily against a counter. She grins and takes another bite of toast.  
“Is that my toast?”  
Natasha locks eyes with Tony and tears the toast in half, sending crumbs spraying. He decides not to press the issue. He stays where he is while she finishes her breakfast, afraid of what might happen if he doesn’t.  
Finally, she says, “If you want to see Clint and me naked, all you have to do is ask.”  
Tony forgets the beer. “Come again?”  
“You came into our room last night, which either means you’re a bigger perv than I thought, or you had a reason for checking on the three of us.”  
“The three of you? Aw, I didn’t realize, Natasha. Congratulations. I’m sure you and Hawkass will be wonderful parents.”  
“Cute, Stark, but I was including Bruce. You weren’t exactly stealthy.”  
“You followed me?”  
Her eyes narrow. “Why? Where did you go?”  
“Um…” He has no idea where he went, so why is there a lump of fear sitting heavy in his stomach and panic flashing hot through his chest? “I just… wanted to make sure everyone was okay. It was kind of a rough day for those of us who aren’t super spies.” It’s the worst lie he’s ever told, including the time he tried to convince Pepper that what she smelled on his breath was extra-strength mouth wash.  
Black Widow leans forward, ready for the kill. “You took the elevator.”  
“To check on Steve.” This almost sounds plausible to Tony’s ears.  
“Funny that you went down to check on someone sleeping three floors above you.”’  
Tony gesticulates wildly. “I needed more wine.”  
Natasha laughs. Tony figures he has two minutes left to live. “You don’t drink wine after dinner. I can tell when you’re lying, Stark.”  
Tony swallows. “I want my lawyer.”  
She raises an eyebrow. “You can have Steve.”

So they all sit around the table, except for Thor, who has disappeared, and try to put it together. Natasha is in favor of hanging Tony like a tapestry and denying him food until he talks. Clint doesn’t suggest anything, but brings his bow and quiver with him and sits running his fingers over one of his arrows. Bruce brings his tablet.  
Tony sits between Bruce and Clint and tries not to look at Steve. Steve looks worried. Tony would take a month of starvation over a concerned Steve.  
“You didn’t come to my room, Tony,” he says softly.  
“You could’ve been asleep. It was pretty late.” Some part of Tony registers that the pleading might not actually help his case, but he ignores it.  
“I didn’t sleep.”  
Natasha puts a hand on Steve’s forearm. Her face melts into compassion until Tony speaks up. Then she glares at him, the flint back in her eyes.  
“You guys, what the hell is going on?”  
Clint places a DVD on the table. The tension in the room becomes palpable. “This is the surveillance video of Loki’s cell for the hours between 0100 and 0300.”   
“I don’t understand,” says Steve.  
Natasha’s glance to him whispers an apology. “The tape is blank.” She looks at Tony; her gaze is almost compassionate, and that scares him more than anything else so far. “We checked the credentials. You erased it, Stark.”  
The table falls silent.  
“Hey, Stark,” says Clint. Tony drags his gaze to Clint’s face. “I know. I get it.”  
Tony spends the next hour in the bathroom, checking his eyes for the glimmer of blue that might redeem him.

Loki is determined to ignore the shadow in the corner, so he keeps his eyes closed and continually wrestles his face into impassivity. The idiot may be reckless, but he knows better than to interrupt Loki when he is meditating, even when there are several inches of safety glass between them. Finally, Loki cannot take the charged silence or the building tension in his neck and hips any more. Any peace he found has been lost.  
“I am not Mother, Thor. Standing there looking sad won’t work.”  
Thor steps forward out of the shadows. “She was not your mother, Loki. No more than Odin was your father.”  
Loki grimaces. “I do not wish to have this conversation again.”  
“No,” says Thor, after a moment. “Nor do I. I have more pressing matters to discuss with you.”  
Loki stands and rolls his eyes before he crosses to lean against the far wall, facing Thor. “The discussion is over, Thor. I know sarcasm is difficult for you, but when I wished you luck, what I meant was,” he searches for an appropriate term that might fit into his brother’s limited vocabulary, “fuck off.”  
“Loki!”  
“Does my language offend you? You do realize that ‘fuck’ is one of Stark’s favorite words, yes?” Loki is testing the water. He hopes that Thor will not jump on the mention of Stark’s name. Thor clucks his tongue. Loki remembers who he is talking to. “Perhaps I can talk to him instead? He is, if nothing else, slightly brighter and more engaging than you.” He cannot be more obvious without recounting the events of last night.   
Thor shrugs off the insult. “You are deflecting, Loki.”  
Thor is dumb, but he is not dumb enough to miss that; nor is he strategic. If he knew about Loki’s conversation with Stark, he would be shouting. Unfortunately, this only means that Stark has not spoken to Thor. Loki doesn’t blame him.  
Suddenly bored with the exchange, Loki decides to play a game. “If I _had_ lost my magic, Thor, why would I tell you?”  
“So that I would show you mercy.”  
“By only breaking half of my ribs? How generous.”  
“If you asked for my help—”  
“You would take me to Asgard and have me beheaded. Do not make the mistake of projecting your gullibility onto me.”   
Thor frowns. “I do not wish to see you beheaded.”  
“That is because you are a fool, Thor. I killed your father. I took your throne.”  
“I do not want the throne.”  
Loki’s face contorts with rage. “Liar! You have always wanted it. Even when Odin banished you, even when it became clear to all that you were unfit to rule, you crawled back like the pitiful creature you—”  
“Do not blame me for your folly!”  
“I would have ensured our realm, Thor!” His voice breaks as the rage gives over to the shriller tones of extreme anxiety. “I would have saved them all. Do you understand, Thor? Your buffoonery will kill us all!”  
His eyes widen and he tries to back away, plastering himself to the sheet of glass behind him. He presses his lips together until they go numb. If he cannot speak, the truth cannot force its way out and he cannot be held accountable for it when everything comes crashing down around their ears.  
“Loki,” says Thor, his voice steady. “What do you know?”  
Loki pours every resource he has left into stretching a smirk across his face. “Only that you will run Asgard and any other realm you touch into the ground.”  
“Brother—”  
“You are not my brother.”  
When Thor walks down the long hall toward the elevator several long, quiet minutes later, Loki collapses into a quivering pile on the floor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Everyone is confused and everything hurts, and I can't actually promise it gets better really soon.


	12. Villains

Tony’s vomiting dries out into violent, empty heaves that take him to the bathroom floor. He curls into the fetal position and presses his face to the cool tile.

“This is why I stopped drinking,” he moans.

“Among other reasons,” says a voice on the other side of the door. There is a rattle, followed by an ominous crunch like a large soda can being crushed. The door catches Tony in the back on the head as it swings open. “Thank you, Thor,” says Pepper. Her voice is easy to place when it’s not muffled by two inches of oak. The door creaks shut. “Sit up.”

Tony rolls over, only to find himself eye-to-toe with Pepper’s stilettos. For fear of being kicked or impaled, he scrambles to comply. Pepper is not abusive, but she is intolerant of self-pitying inaction.

She squats in front of him. “Hey.”

“Hi,” he manages. She cradles his face in her hands and studies him.

“Your eyes are the right color.”

“The Tesseract is gone, Pep, which means I did whatever I did of my own free will.”

She takes his hands and stands, pulling him with her. “You didn’t do anything bad, Tony. You’re not a villain.” 

“So why did I erase the tapes?”

“Let’s go find out,” says Pepper.

 

Pepper gets angry like a Greek god. Her rages are consuming and unstoppable, and demand expression. She differs from the deities only in that she favors cold fury that pierces its victims with shards of polished ice, rather than earthquakes and tornadoes.

When Pepper sweeps into the basement prison, Loki’s head snaps up, and when she stops in front of his cell with her shoulders pulled back and glaciers in her eyes, he assumes a defensive stance. Pepper is gratified by the fear that flashes across his face.

“What the _hell_ did you do to Tony?"

Loki smirks. It looks forced. “He wandered down here and woke me to ramble. I was merely an innocent bystander.”

“Liar,” says Tony, who is cowering behind Pepper, out of her line of fire. Pepper plants an elbow in his stomach.

“Let me handle this,” she hisses.

“As if you remember, Stark. Judging by your slurred speech and pathetic blubbering, you drank enough last night to put Thor under the table,” says Loki.

“So fill us in,” says Pepper.

“I told you. He came, he saw, he babbled.”

“He erased the security footage.”

“Did he? Perhaps he made a declaration of love for another that he did not wish you to see. I do not recall, but I stopped listening three words in.”

“Pepper, go upstairs,” says Tony. His voice is soft; dangerous. He moves in front of her and locks eyes with Loki, who steps forward. A smile spreads across his face like syrup.

“No,” she says.

“This isn’t getting us anywhere. Go.”

Pepper presses her lips together until the blood drains away. Loki turns his gaze on to her.

“You heard him,” he says.

Pepper leaves, because murdering Loki would make Thor cry and even the thought of a broken and sobbing Thor wrenches her heart.

 

Loki’s eyes slide back to Tony. “Stark,” he says curtly.

“You’d think that you being inside my head would put us on first-name terms,” says Tony.

“Now, now. Your girlfriend is gone. You can stop pretending.”

Tony’s pulse pounds in his ears. “This isn’t a game, Loki. You possessed me.”

“You and I both know that isn’t possible, _Anthony_.”

The gears in Tony’s head, rusted to a stop by alcohol, creak to life. He remembers the fight and Loki’s strange failure to struggle, remembers pieces falling into place, remembers shrieks in the night and dread morphing creeping, curious pity. “You don’t have your” — he waves his hand around. It’s hard to say the word in the light of day with a scientific miracle beating in his chest.

"Magic," Loki finishes.

“Right. Why are you telling me this?”

Loki’s face twists into a pained expression. In the scowl, Tony sees something familiar. Loki is not just angry or crazy. From what Thor says, he is a child wreaking insane vengeance on an absentee father. Tony found his comfort in drink and girls; Loki finds his in murder.

“You’re lonely,” says Tony.

Loki snarls. “Don’t be foolish.”

“Look, I don’t care, and frankly I think you deserve it. But I’d be insane not to use this to my advantage, so I will absolutely torture you about this until you tell me what I need to know.”

“I told you about my magic. What else is there?”

“I seem to recall something about a monster.”

Loki approaches the glass. From this angle, he towers over Tony, but Tony is not afraid. He has found vulnerability, and he has spent a lifetime honing his ability to milk weaknesses. 

“What do I get in return?”

“What’s it worth, Loki?”

“I tell you this, Stark, and you set me free with enough money to start a new life. Tell the others what you will: that I possessed you, that I made you bleed. I would be happy to provide the appropriate injuries. But you tell no one that I have lost my magic.”

Tony narrows his eyes. Loki glares.

“Fine,” says Tony.

Loki tells him.

 

Loki’s absence from his cell in Asgard has not gone unnoticed.

Balder sits on Odin’s throne and puts on a brave face while his warriors report from the front.

They have recaptured the citadel.

They have driven the invaders to the rainbow bridge.

Their realm is their own again.

Only Sif sees the self-hatred dancing below the façade. She sits at his side and holds his hand, and when the throne room empties again and they are alone, she leans in to speak in his ear.

“You have defended our realm, my lord,” she says.

“I have failed,” he says.

“We will find Loki, Balder.”

“Without Thor?”

“We will contact Thor on Midgard. He will come back for Loki,” says Sif.

“No!” Sif crushes his hand at the outburst. “Forgive me, Sif, but Thor cannot know.”

“Your pride serves no one!”

“This is not a matter of pride.” His voice softens. “If I am to sit on the Allfather’s throne, I have to be able to defend this realm in Thor’s absence. I will never be king if I must turn to him every time there is a problem.”

“No, Sif. I already surrendered once. I need to do this.”

Sif sighs and leaves her seat to kneel before him. She takes both of his hands in her own. “You had no choice.”

“There is always a choice.”

Sif stands. “Then I will gather the warriors three. We are behind you, my lord.”

“Thank you.”

 

“Hang on. You’re telling me that Thor let Thanos torture you? Jesus, Loki, what did you _do_?”

“Try to listen, Stark. _Balder_ let Thanos’s men torture me, in exchange for the safety of Asgard. Thor was here, playing hero with you. As I was about to say, however, Thanos went back on his word. He took the realm in exchange for the lives and servitude of its inhabitants.”

“Why?”

“He seeks the Tesseract. When I could not provide its location, he decided that he would hold Asgard hostage in order to pry the information from Thor, but he was distracted by the loss of a second infinity stone before he could contact Thor. He pulled all but a few of his forces from Asgard. Balder and the rest of Thor’s guard dogs preoccupied themselves planning a revolt. That is when I escaped.”

“And Thanos?”

“Will come to Midgard in search of the Tesseract. Which is why you need to hold up your end of our bargain, Stark; as much as I relish the idea of being torn in half by an angry purple warmonger…”

“We have an angry green Hulk who could do the honors instead.”

“Wonderful. Let me go.” 

Tony picks himself up from the floor, where he has been sitting for the past half hour, listening to Loki’s tale. It is almost too intricate to be true, and Loki is the god of mischief, but the bruises on his face and the way he winces when he says Thanos’s name quiet the doubt in Tony’s mind. That does not change the fact that Loki is a murderous psychopath.

“I can’t trust you,” says Tony.

“Luckily, I am not asking you to trust me. I am asking you to do the honorable thing and uphold your end of our deal,” says Loki.

“How do I know you won’t kill us all?”

“Beyond the fact that I would have to be suicidal to draw attention to myself with Thanos on his way? You don’t.”

Tony paces. He hears Loki tapping his foot, impatient, and slows down. When he thinks he must have pushed the god to the brink, he pauses and looks at Loki once again. “Anyone sane would call letting you go impulsive and irresponsible.”

“I will count myself lucky that I am having this conversation with you and not with Rogers.”

Tony doesn’t bother with acting indignant. He shrugs. “Fine. Tonight. But if you’re dreaming when I get down here, I reserve the right to make some popcorn and watch.”

“And I reserve the right to murder you in your sleep,” says Loki.


	13. Deal

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Suicide and Self-Harm trigger warnings for this chapter. Please take care of yourself and skip it if you need to.

Night is not a good time for Steve. There are the nightmares about Bucky, the all-over ache he still experiences when he gets even a little bit cold, and the nagging in his heart and head when he thinks about Tony. He spends most nights staring out the window or sitting in the kitchen nursing a beer.

It’s an English stout night. Before the war, Bucky smuggled German pilsner from the refrigerator at home, and he and Steve drank it until lines blurred and colors splashed together. In the service, they were urged to drink Pabst if they drank at all. Bucky preferred the stronger stout, and because he drank it, so did Steve. It tastes like long nights and sloppy, exploratory kisses.

He scowls and swirls his beer.

“Are you going to drink that or smash it?”

Steve sets his jaw and sets the beer down. “Not in the mood, Tin Man.”

Tony smirks; Steve’s nerves prickle. “Right. So I was thinking we should go to a strip club. Shock the grandpa right out of you,” says Tony.

“I have actually seen scantily-clad women before.”

“But have you seen a _naked_ woman? Private dances are a hell of a thing.”

“You’re engaged.”

“I’m just doing my civic duty for Captain and country.”

The prickle becomes a sizzle. Steve takes a deep drink of beer to put it out, but this just fans the sparks into a smoldering fire. The flames lick his frayed nerves until they snap. 

“What are you doing, Stark?” Steve does not realize that Tony has been talking until Tony shuts his mouth. The blessed quiet only lasts until Tony recovers enough to mouth off.

“Sorry,” says Tony. “I didn’t realize making conversation was against the rules.”

“Don’t be smart. Why are you taking me all these places? First to the movies, and then the bakery… now a strip club?” 

Tony will not meet his gaze. “I tend to make a bad first impression,” he says.

“You’re making up for a bad first impression with _strip clubs_?”

“Would you prefer a gay bar?”

Heat flashes through Steve’s core at the idea of going to a gay bar with Tony Stark. He identifies most of this feeling as intense irritation. He does not want to think about the rest.

“Right now, my priority is finding Bucky and bringing him home. Your warped attempts to bond can wait.” Steve raises the bottle to his lips and drains it. Tony opens his mouth to say something. Steve cuts him off. “Good night, Tony.”

Before he leaves, Steve grabs three more bottles of beer from the fridge.

 

“Is that guilty look because of me? My, my Stark, you really know how to charm a man.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Loki.”

“Did you have a spat with your betrothed? Perhaps she sensed our connection and mistook it for something more? Tell her not to worry, you’re not my type.”

“We don’t have a connection, we have a deal.”

Loki leers at Tony from the other side of the glass. It occurs to Tony that Loki has no leverage. He could walk away and leave Loki to rot.

“You will let me go, Stark,” says Loki. His voice drips malice like black tar. Tony jumps; if he was not positive that Loki has lost his magic, he would be running for a tinfoil hat. “You see, Thor is determined to drag a confession out of me. Try as I might to avoid doing anything to compromise you, I am afraid that he might just learn of your nocturnal habits tomorrow morning if I am still here when he comes to badger me.” 

“Thor will never take your word over mine.”

Loki shrugs. “Fine. If I am here, Thanos will come here first, looking for me, looking for the Tesseract. But by all means, sacrifice your friends for your own conscience. I care not.”

“Not if I kill you.”

“Then kill me, Stark.”

Loki is still smiling, but this is not the oil-slick smile he wore when he was taunting Tony. It has a faraway, half-sad quality. The word ‘yearning’ floats across Tony’s mind.

Loki is not bluffing.

“Kill me,” he says again.

The pit that settles in Tony’s stomach dances with flashbacks: nights with a bottle of vodka in one hand and a bottle of pills in the other, blood dripping crimson into the bathroom sink, bruises explained away as lab accidents. Together, they make up his mind for him.

“Fine,” says Tony. Loki looks shocked until Tony continues. “JARVIS, after I enter the code to cell 8, erase the last twenty minutes of security footage and loop footage from 2100 to 2120 in its place.”

“Sir.”

Loki’s shoulders sag.

“I have no idea what your mumbo-jumbo shit looks like, but once I enter this code, wave your hand or something, yeah? And when you beat me up, try to avoid the face.”

“No promises.”

“Right.” Tony retreats into the shadows and clears his throat. “P-O-T-T-S.”

There is a soft hiss as a five-foot section of the wall, its seams so smooth that Tony has forgotten them until this moment, slides first outwards and then sideways. Loki squeezes his eyes shut and purses his lips, waves his hand. Tony takes this as his cue to dash out of the shadows, a look of panic painted on his features.

“Get back,” he says. 

Loki laughs and Tony goes cold.

“Get out of the way, Stark,” says Loki.

Tony desperately wants to scurry back to the elevator. Even unarmed and without his magic, Loki has the air of one who would kill with minimal effort and without a second thought. Instead, he widens his stance and sets his jaw.

Loki narrows his eyes and waves his hand at Tony. Tony hesitates. Loki waves again and glances from Tony to the floor. Tony flings himself down. He is struggling to sit—quite convincingly, he thinks—when a shadow falls across him. 

“I should snap your neck,” says Loki.

Tony looks up with real terror in his eyes. 

Loki continues. “It is apt punishment for imprisoning me. However, your friends would likely hunt me down if I killed you here and now.” He turns to look at the camera behind him. Tony inches away; Loki reaches back and catches Tony by the collar of his t-shirt. Tony gags as Loki drags him around and to his feet to face the camera. “Stark does not die tonight. But if you come after me, know that I will take his head as a trophy.”

It’s all very theatrical. If Tony wasn’t terrified, he would laugh.

His thoughts are interrupted when Loki’s fist connects with his temple. Tony’s vision blurs and he pitches forward. Loki catches him, spins him around, and punches him in the face. Tony hears a crack and tastes blood, and then Loki knees him in the stomach and he blacks out.

When he comes to, Loki is gone.


End file.
